TRD - External Trade

External trade in goods statistics is compiled by Eurostat on a monthly basis following a harmonised methodology set out in European regulations (known as the Community concept; and using data collection systems based on both extra-EU and intra-EU (Intrastat) data. According to these regulations, Member States should supply detailed extra-EU trade data to Eurostat six weeks after, aggregated intra-EU data eight weeks after and detailed intra-EU data ten weeks after the end of the reporting month.
Eurostat publishes total extra-euro area trade results 50-55 days after the end of the reporting month, while detailed results, broken down by partner and product, become available one month later. It should be noted that extra-euro area results are not as timely as extra-EU data, because the data for the three (four before 2001) EU Member States not participating in the Economic and Monetary Union (namely Denmark, Sweden and the United Kingdom) become available later. An advanced release calendar for Press releases on External Trade can be found on the Eurostat-website (Euro-indicators).
The ECB databank includes series upon agreement with ECB data users. Data required for ad hoc purposes can be downloaded from Comext by the users.

Reference area:
Data are currently available for the 28 EU countries, MU-19 and EU-28 aggregates as declarants. In addition, some few series are available for candidate countries. Harmonised series are available since 1999 and before that the series of candidate countries are available according to national concepts.
Partner area:
There are 31 partners for each product group and they are selected according to the economic relevance for euro area trade.
Product groups:
Product groupings (14 in total) are shown in two aggregate classifications: SITC on digit groups and broad economic categories, which are derived from SITC data, but provide more homogenous aggregation of the data.
For all of the above statistics data in values, volume and unit values are available. For selected key items seasonally adjusted series are available in addition to the raw data.

Periodicity

Only monthly series. Quarterly and annual data can be derived from the monthly data by simple addition of the values, and by averages for indices.

Timeliness

The monthly data are published approximately 46 days after the end of the reference month.

Partner country allocation:In Community statistics, extra-EU trade is allocated according to its final destination/origin,
while intra-EU trade is treated according to the country of consignment with a view to preventing double counting or omissions
. However, for national trade statistics some Member States record the country of origin as the partner country; this
information is considered more relevant at the national level.More methodological information on sources and methods can
be accessed via the following link.

International / Supranational guidelines

User Guide of External Trade Statistics. Community Legislation applicable to the Statistics Relating to the Trading of Goods Between Member States and Statistics Relating to the Trading of Goods with Third Countries.

Specificities of national practice

Treatment of goods in transit
Some Member States do not record any transaction for goods they consider to be transit trade. This involves imported goods, which are re-exported either immediately after their arrival or after the customs declaration has been made. In intra-EU Community statistics two transactions would be recorded: one for import and one for export.

Compilation practices

The first release of extra-euro area results is preliminary; estimates of missing country data are made by Eurostat using, firstly, corresponding data produced according to national methodologies and, secondly, forecasting techniques. Trade statistics value the imports on a c.i.f. basis (including costs of insurance and freight up to the importer's border) and the exports on a f.o.b. basis (free on board at the exporter’s border).
Trade values are expressed in euro (ECU up to end-1998). Volume and unit value indices are calculated monthly by Eurostat with the Fisher formula (the geometric mean of a Laspeyres and a Paasche index), are annually chained and then rebased in 2010.

Seasonal adjustment

Eurostat carries out working day/seasonal adjustments of Member States series and then aggregates the results to build EMU and EU totals (indirect method). Hence it is possible that Eurostat’s seasonally adjusted series differ from Member States’ seasonally adjusted series.
The seasonal adjustment is performed by using the JDEMETRA 2.0.0 software as recommended by the ESS guidelines. Eurostat reviews all the ARIMA models once a year when a new reference year becomes available. Eurostat estimates the seasonal factors (for the whole series) once a month and the models' performance is checked before the new reference monthly data are released. If deemed necessary, models can be fine-tuned or more drastically changed all over the year.